But who would be the target of this campaign? If we were talking about ElBaradei or the Google guy then I'd see the point of a hype campaign, but what is the nefarious plot behind claiming that some of the protesters read some book by an American?
I'd rather suspect that the western press is desperate to write about the Egyptian revolution without knowing much about it. They are just happy to find anything that seems relevant.

in my opinion, it's to deflect the anger of the Egyptian people at Americans for repressing them for so long in order to maintain the peace with Israel, i.e. to make Americans look like good guys and not the self-serving repressive SOB's we are.

I think it's a ham-fisted attempt at that, but also - since most US foreign policy is for domestic consumption - to wave the "hey, we're the good guys!' flag at home.

It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to pretend that after 50 years of instituting and supporting some of the most odious, violent and repressive regimes on the planet that the US has any interest at all in peace or democracy.

Clearly, it has none at all. But it's very useful to pretend that it does.

Now that Sharp has been identified as the - reluctant - saviour of Egyptian democracy, no one needs to ask who sponsored Mubarak, who trained his secret police, who supplied military aid, or who kept the country impoverished in the first place.

For many avid readers, the narrative is now full of hope that the rioting African savages can be civilised into modernity after all - but only when gently guided by the wise and mature counsel of a more serious and established intellectual tradition.

Oh of course, referring to this one guy is all a cunning capitalist plot to excuse the US government's support for dictators for decades. What rubbish.

It was young Egyptians who mentioned him:

When Egypt's April 6 Youth Movement was struggling to recover from a failed effort in 2005, its leaders tossed around "crazy ideas" about bringing down the government, said Ahmed Maher, a leading strategist. They stumbled on Mr. Sharp while examining the Serbian movement Otpor, which he had influenced.
...

Dalia Ziada, an Egyptian blogger and activist ... said that some activists translated excerpts of Mr. Sharp's work into Arabic, and that his message of "attacking weaknesses of dictators" stuck with them.

The fact that some of them said they found some of his ideas useful hardly makes him a "saviour of Egyptian democracy" - except in your cartoon world. Another NYT article makes it clear that the organisers were bright, informed people who used net skills to help organise things, but they themselves pay tribute to the majority who risked their lives:

"When I looked around me and I saw all these unfamiliar faces in the protests, and they were more brave than us -- I knew that this was it for the regime," Mr. Maher said.

"The youth of the Muslim Brotherhood played a really big role," Mr. Maher said. "But actually so did the soccer fans" of Egypt's two leading teams. "These are always used to having confrontations with police at the stadiums," he said.

ibid

Also noted is Egyptian pride in their own level of civilisation:

"Eighty-five million people live in Egypt, and less than 1,000 people died in this revolution -- most of them killed by the police," said Mr. Ghonim, the Google executive. "It shows how civilized the Egyptian people are." He added, "Now our nightmare is over. Now it is time to dream."